Trial paused amid judge’s virus scare
Father accused of killing his 13- year- old son near Durango
The jury trial for a Colorado father accused of killing his 13year- old son near Durango in 2012 was paused Thursday after the judge presiding over the case woke up with mild COVID19 symptoms.
Sixth Judicial District Chief Judge Jeffrey Wilson stopped jury selection and took two tests for COVID- 19, with plans to declare a mistrial if the tests come back positive. The first test returned a negative result Thursday evening, Court Executive Eric Hogue said. The result of the second test is expected Saturday.
Hogue added that Wilson’s symptoms, which included the loss of taste and smell, were mild and had subsided within a few hours, but that he was tested for the virus out of an abundance of caution.
As long as the second test is also negative, jury selection should continue Monday in the trial of Mark Redwine, 59, who is charged with second- degree murder and child abuse resulting in the death of his son, Dylan Redwine.
The boy went missing in November 2012, shortly after he arrived at his father’s home for a court- ordered visit over the Thanksgiving holiday. Part of the boy’s remains were found in 2013, and his skull was discovered about a mile- and- a- half away from the first set of remains in 2015. Redwine was charged in the killing in 2017; all of Dylan’s remains were found within 10 miles of his Vallecito home.
The case garnered national attention, in part because Redwine has consistently denied any involvement in his son’s death.
“What is out of the realm of possibility is that I would do anything to my son,” he told The Denver Post in a 2014 interview.
Prosecutors, however, have pointed to the father and son’s strained relationship, and said they found blood inside Redwine’s home. Investigators also said a police dog alerted to a “cadaver scent” inside Redwine’s home.
Opening statements in the trial, which had been expected to start Monday, will be pushed back by a day or two because of the coronavirus scare. The trial is taking place in- person in Durango, but with a variety of health precautions, including maskwearing and social- distancing.